Gotta Love Dave Barry

Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space. ~Dave Barry

Hannah's Senior Session

  I had a great Senior Session the other day with Hannah. We started in the studio and ended up in the cemetery! But it's all okay. No one died, it just happens to be a really, really gorgeous cemetery so we used it as our backdrop to add some Fall colors to the session :-)

 I have to go ahead and admit something right from the get-go. The very minute Hannah and her family walked into the studio I was struck with serious "hair envy".  Hannah, her Mom and her sisters all have these gorgeous tresses in varying shades of brown and blonde. We fine-haired gals notice these things and turn quietly green with envy. Hannah's hair is so thick and luxuriant that we had to put the fan really close to her face and on full-blast mode to get her pretty hair to flow for the pictures! But, all hair envy aside, look how awesome they turned out:

  We had a lot of fun with this guitar, too. Hannah is an aspiring player and we used that to add a little something extra to her portraits. Capturing the personal interests of my subjects is very important to me, especially in a Senior Session.

We headed out from the studio and in to the city to grab some cool urban backgrounds. 

I was in such a hurry to get to our next location that I inadvertently gave Hannah's parents the slip in traffic. Embarassing! I really have to learn not to drive quite so aggressively. It's hard when I'm all full of picture ideas and the sun is setting quickly...aaaahhh!! :-D

Again with the hair! How cute is this!? I say, if you've got it...work it!! And Hannah definitely worked those gorgeous locks for this shot. I LOVE it!!

We zipped down to the railroad tracks and took some more cool images with the guitar. While we were there, a funny little incident took place. A lady passed by walking her adorable little white puppy. Something startled the pooch and he immediately slipped out of his collar and went tearing down the tracks with the poor lady in hot pursuit. The little doggie was fast, but the little lady was amazingly faster and scooped up the errant fluff ball before he could get too far!! I was looking at Hannah through my camera the whole time (not noticing anything going on around me) when suddenly this woman appears in the background of my picture tearing up the tracks after this wildly running floofy white puppy. Naturally, I took a picture of the action. Hey, don't judge me...YOU would've taken the picture, too. That's just funny stuff! 

Our final stop was the cemetery (no pun intended...well, okay, maybe a little!). We took advantage of the fall colors and the final golden rays of the setting sun to create some really scrumptious images

These are just a few of the many beautiful picture we created of Hannah. All-in-all it was an eventful and successful Senior Portrait Session. Hannah was sweet and cooperative and just a pleasure to work with. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to meet her and her exceedingly nice family. Have a great Senior year, Hannah!!

For Amanda and Alex' s Engagement portraits, we traveled out to Oak Ridge Estate in Nelson County. In less than two months, the couple will hold their wedding ceremony on the Estate and they wanted to capture some of the beautiful architecture of the buildings.

We started the session with a few studio shots.




It was an absolutely beautiful day and the crisp Fall sunshine gave a beautiful natural backlight to this image


Amanda was not too thrilled about the idea of lying on the ground, but she was brave and took one for the team. And I LOVE the way the pictures turned out!! Thanks, Amanda! :-)

Random factoid about yours truly: I am TERRIBLE with names. I will never forget your face and WHO you are, but your name? Yeh. Not so much. In the picture below, this fact worked in my favor. As I was looking through the camera, giving posing instructions, I mistakenly called Alex, "Adam". And didn't catch myself before I did it AGAIN!! Well, the couple found this to be hysterically funny and flashed these beautiful, big natural smiles at the camera--which I caught!! LOVE IT!!

I'm definitely going to remember to call them by the wrong names on their wedding day, just to get those awesome smiles, again, LOL!! :-)



My wonderful niece Savannah (which in the original Latin means "incredibly talented assistant who works for tacos") was my P. A. that day and she grabbed a couple of pictures of me working. Here I am setting up the shot...

And here is the resulting image...



The day of our session was also Amanda's birthday and she arrived at the studio armed with a beautiful bouquet of roses given to her by her mother. Naturally, we incorporated them into some of the portraits



I made a collage of images we did behind the main house, with the sun angling over the roof. It gave an almost ethereal quality to this set of portraits. I SO dig the ethereal!!



We took a whole bunch more great images, but I'll just leave you with one final picture that I thought was TOO adorable.


That last one kind of says it all, eh?

I'm looking very forward to capturing Amanda and Alex's Big Day in a couple of months!

Whitney and Brian (WB)

  Faith and laughter. Those are the two words  that pop into my mind when I think of Whitney and Brian. Strong faith in God and an always-at-the-ready sense of humor. The WB, as I came to refer to them in my head, were a pleasure to work with, from engagement portraits, to the bridal session, all the way through to the wedding day. Whitney was sweet and well organized--she was a bride who knew what she wanted but was very pleasant about getting it. That makes my job as the photographer SOOO much easier!! 

 WB's engagement session was fun and relaxed. It was beautiful day for outdoor portraits and we took advantage of the sunshine and mountain views:

I thought it was cute how the wind caught Whitney's hair and blew it across her face just as she was going in for the smooch

Whitney's bridal portrait session was fraught with challenges, including biting gnats, cars speeding by and a recurrent "hair issue". But Whitney was stalwart and patient and as a result, the pictures were beautiful. Here are a couple of pretty ones from the studio and the bridge over the James River:

I especially love her eyes in this picture

One of my favorite bridal sessions moments of all time occurred as Whitney was poised on the railing of the bridge, and we were taking a break to let a car go by. The car slowed down and rolled down the window. This fella stuck his head out and asked Whitney "where's the groom?" she smiled and replied "I don't know, I can't find him!"  The guy, never missing a beat, said "Hang on, I'll be right back!" and made as if to turn his car around and join her. It was straight out of a comedy skit!! I still get  a chuckle out of that story.

When the wedding day finally arrived, it was beautifully organized, and the atmosphere was surprisingly relaxed and calm. Trust me, folks, this is not a standard mood on wedding days. The usual gnashing of teeth and sweating of bullets was noticeably absent. Things flowed together like a well oiled machine! 

Pate chapel is beautifully equipped to accommodate the bride and her girls, with a private suite to serve as dressing/staging area.

The gals had me chuckling with their very practical approach for preventing any wardrobe problems: duct tape! And it worked! Everyone looked beautifully flawless coming down the aisle!

Speaking of coming down the aisle shots, this is not an easy one to get. But when you CAN get it? Well, just look. The Groom sees his Bride for the first time on their wedding day. A moment of pure, honest emotion captured forever. *Sigh* I love my job.

The service was lovely and  included communion for the new couple and a praise song in which all of the guests participated. This was a first for me and I really liked the way it brought the crowd together in celebration of the joyous event taking place. Very touching. 

After the service, we had a long list of formal family pictures to get through, but my lighting set up was spot-on and the pics turned out great. Recreating studio lighting on location is a specialty of mine :-)

We ran around to the outside of the chapel with just the bridal party and grabbed a few fun, romantic shots

 

WB's reception was joyful and happy; filled with many hugs and much laughter. The newlyweds share a great sense of humor and have a fun group of friends who kept the party upbeat and lively. And yet another first, for me: The bouquet was tossed THREE times and was caught by the same lucky (and very determined) young lady each time. There were rumors of it being "rigged", but I chose not to believe such loose talk (LOL!!)

The expressions in these pics are priceless!!

There are about zillion more gorgeous pictures from this special day that I would love to share here, but I have to stop blogging and get back to editing them all. I am happy that WB's Big Day came off so beautifully well. And I am happy that they allowed me to play a part in such a very meaningful time in their lives. May the Lord richly bless the union of these two special people.

 

Blair 2010

    I met Blair for the first time when she came to the studio for her Senior Portraits. But I just knew we were going to get along great the minute I laid eyes on her shoes--zebra striped flip-flops! It is very apparent to anyone who's been by to visit my studio that I dig the whole zebra stripe thing ;-) So we played around with that theme a little in her pictures.
We literally pulled a curtain off of it's rod to use it for a background for this shot!



Zebra studio chair paired perfectly with zebra shoes!



Blair has lovely red hair and I definitely wanted to play that up in the pictures. The brick background worked beautifully with her complexion, too.



We started shooting in the studio and made our way down to the river; catching a few urbanesque images along the way. Urbanesque. I just made that word up. It means city-fied. (Yep, made that one up, too!)

Speaking of the river, Blair was hard core when it came to rolling up pant legs and wading right into the water, sans shoes, to get these shots. I waded in, too, shoes and jeans still on to get the right angle. But look how cool they came out!! Some things are just worth wet legs and soggy shoes, you know? :-)

Thanks for being such a trooper, Blair!! And thanks for choosing me to do your Senior Portraits. I enjoyed working with you!!!!

Jamie and Brandon's Wedding on the Lake

If you've never been to Smith Mountain Lake, let me give you little description. There you are, driving along, seemingly in the middle of nowhere surrounded by non-descript fields and hills when you make one little turn and suddenly...you're at the beach---but with MOUNTAINS!! There's sand and sun and water and boats everywhere, all winding between layers of majestic blue-green mountains. It's a perfect backdrop for a wedding!

Jamie and Brandon held their event at a resort hotel, right on the water. The girls all wore turquoise satin gowns that really pulled out the color of the surrounding mountains and lake.
The bride's flawless tan and pretty, beach-blond tresses were highlighted by the brilliant afternoon sunlight. The groom and his boys were dapper in their tuxes with seashell boutonnieres---that was a new one on me; very unique and clever.

We had some fun and a bit of excitement with the formal pictures. I convinced the whole wedding party to venture out onto one of the narrow arms of the floating dock, placing the B&G  in the foreground, closer to the camera. Cool shot, right? Imagine their surprise (and mine!) when the dock started sinking under their combined weight!! I think some of the groomsmen actually got their shoes wet before the whole group was able to inch back towards the center of the dock and onto drier ground. Everyone was extremely good natured about it, though and smiled and waved for the pictures despite the wet feet! Thanks for being so nice about it, guys and gals!! As a result, the pictures came out great!

We captured SO many lovely pictures, that day. Here are just a few pretty highlights:

Putting on the finishing touches



It's all about the SHOES!!! :-)



The mountains and lake made a stunning backdrop for the ceremony

Isin't the lacing on the back of her dress just beautiful?

A classic. This shot never goes out of style. Love it!

Here is the picture that darn near dumped the whole party into the lake (notice how the left side of the dock is sinking!)....but look how GREAT it turned out! :-)

One of my absolute favorite's from the day

Thanks so much, Jamie and Brandon, for letting me capture the special moments of your beautiful wedding day. You have all of my best wishes for a long, happy life together!